Capital gains tax - moving abroad.

Hello all,

This is my first post here and I really hope someone can help me.

My husband and I are moving to Austria in 5 weeks time - my husband has found a job over there- and would like to hold on to our house for a year in case it does'nt work out and we want to come back.
I'm trying to find out if we will be liable for CGT on the sale of our property if we sell it after 12 months. I understand that if we sell it within 12 months of it being our primary residence we would be exempt but can't figure out if we would have to pay it after that. I found the following in the revenue booklet on CGT but can't figure out if it means we would need to live in the house again for a period before we could sell it and be exempt:

"the following periods of absence from the house are
also regarded as periods of occupation provided that, both before and after those periods, the
house was the owner’s only or main residence and that throughout those periods he/she had no
other house eligible for exemption:-
(i) any period throughout which the individual was employed outside the State ."

We will be renting an apartment in Austria so I presume that our house in Dublin would still be considered our primary residence?

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

Thankyou!!!

I looked into this some time ago and I think the situation is you are allowed to have the house vacant for 12 months but if you are abroad full time on employment with the intention of coming back sometime the period abroad is not counted.

I dont know what is the case if you never live in the house again though.

I think there is a section on it in www.revenue.ie

Thanks for your reply Highflier,

I've spent a lot of time looking through the revenue site and can't find the info i need.

Can anyone else help pretty please? We really need to find this out as soon as possible as we will need to do quite a lot to the house to get it ready for the market if we need to sell it now ( not to mention the packing and everything else!!! ahhhhhhhhh!!!)

To be certain get professional independant advice. You have quoted some relevant guidance in your earlier post. If you are both employed outside the State then the period for which you are away will be deemed to be a period of PPR (provided that the house is your only or main residence). Assuming you don't rent it out or acquire a new residence, for what its worth, i think the house would remain your PPR and accordingly not be liable to any CGT.